Q10 - In some countries, national planners

[Celeste757]

Hello,

I am stuck between choices C and D on this one. I picked C, a guess, which happens to be correct, but i don't really know why. is it that you can look at it like:

overall urbanization problems:
1) one prong of attack is lowering migration
2) second proposed prong of attack is trading for goods

therefore if the scarcity of goods is a central element, it will help solve the problems, hence it strengthens?

the "strengthen" questions are supposed to be similar to assumptions, correct?

thanks!!

[giladedelman]

Right, right -- strengthen/weaken questions are part of the assumption family. Which I happen to have mentioned to you a few times in person...

So in this case, we're only really concerned with the economists' argument, because that's what the question asks about. We can look at the argument as follows:

P: Migration from rural to urban areas leads to increased problems arising from urbanization ----------> C: Problems could be solved by trading urban-produced goods in exchange for agricultural ones that used to be produced domestically

Notice that the conclusion starts talking about production of goods, which doesn't come up at all in the premise. In fact, all the premise says is that there are "problems" from urbanization; we have no idea what those problems are! But based on the economists' proposed solution, we can bet that they are assuming that these problems have to do with obtaining agricultural products.

(C) is correct because it identifies what these problems are in a way that makes the economists' idea look good: if the lack of agricultural products is central to the problems of urbanization, then it would make sense to trade the products of an urban economy in exchange for agricultural products; that way we could correct that scarcity even as our economy becomes more urbanized.

(A) is incorrect because government subsidies is a whole separate solution. We're trying to strengthen the economists' proposal.

(B) tempted me until I realized that we are never told that these problems have economic causes. So it's out of scope.

(D) was tempting, too, but when we really look at it, we can see that the argument never mentions anything about "trade imbalances between countries." It mentions trading, but that's not the same thing as trade imbalances. Plus, even if we knew there were imbalances, how do we know what effect the proposal would have on them?

(E) is incorrect because "free trade policies" is out of scope.

Does that clear this one up for you?

[kumsayuya]

Argument breakdown:
• National planners think in order to slow down urbanization, they need to stop people migrating from rural areas – but economics do not agree

CORE

• Trading goods and services produced by an urban population to gain agricultural products.

• Therefore, this will help with problems of urbanization.

Okay so, when we break this down, it looks pretty dumb doesn’t it? Not really a great argument, unless I’m missing something? The assumption seems to be that having agricultural products somehow makes urbanization slow down.

(A) I think this is ultimately irrelevant. It weakens the initial ideas by the national planners – the idea that slowing migration from rural areas may help stop urbanization. It weakens it by stating that even if they did not slow it down, government subsidies could help soften the blow. However, this certainly doesn’t lend any credit to the idea of the economists about trading. Overall, I’d say it irrelevant.

(B) Pretty broad sweeping statement here. We are not actually sure if the problem of urbanization is due to any type of economic cause, so even if this statement is true, it wouldn’t strengthen the idea that it must have economic solutions ( which may be matched up with the idea of trading in this case ). Overall, I think this is irrelevant, but hopes that you may make some faulty links with the ideas in the stimulus. This actually reminds me quite a bit of an answer that may be on a principle type question – if we read a stimulus and had to pick out of the answer choices a principle that helps justify the argument. But I digress.

(C) Sure, this helps strengthen it. Remember when I said it seemed like a pretty weak argument? Now, if this is true, agricultural products are a central element to ANY urbanization problem, and what do we have here? An urbanization problem! Surely then, having a central element would help make this argument stronger for the economists. This is why it’s the correct answer.

(D) Okay so this answer gave me some grief. I think in this case, its best to stick to the core closely. So we want to support the idea that trading for agriculture = helps issues of urbanization. But is there ever any mention of issues of trade imbalances anywhere? This answer choice jumbles up the idea of migration and makes a false issue in trading imbalances to seem attractive – but there is never any mention of trade imbalances being an issue.

(E) This would weaken it (if you didn't see that the term shift made it out of scope). If free trade would make issues worse, why would we suggest something that wants trading to occur? We also do not know anything about “free trade” specifically, which may be a term shift that could tip you off. If you didn’t see it though, the idea of trading having a negative effect on increasing urbanization should be enough for you to eliminate it.